Posts by Ole Juul

Everyone loves our new desktop web search design so much – the one with ads that look like links – that we're tweaking it, says Google

Re: We're dedicated to improving the desktop experience for Search

It's the ones that don't complain that are suspect here and I'm not sure that the terms "trust" or "stupid" are relevant to the users who are complaining. I think they use Google in an attempt to find something. Whether or not they "trust" that all the results will lead to the best choice is another matter. Most of us are quite capable of judging for ourselves and class the problem as a nuisance. We don't expect better from Google.

Protestors in Los Angeles force ICANN board out of hiding over .org sale – for a brief moment, at least

Re: Appearance of impropriety

"Well this has the appearance of impropriety."

And your point is?

FCC proudly wastes $90m getting data-capped, pricey satellite internet to tiny percentage of US population

Re: Pirate radio?

Good point about them clearly having community support. The situation is more about competition though. The big guys pay huge licensing sums and have traditionally claimed a lot of air space in return. A license to print money is worth protecting aggressively. That said, I'm rooting for the pirates.

Chrome OS: Yo dawg, I heard you like desktops so we put a workspace in your workspace

Re: Linux for the win

". . . are you asking if there are any DEs that work like Android?"

Well there's, uh, Android. :)

Android-x86

Remember the FBI's promise it wasn’t abusing the NSA’s data on US peeps? Well, guess what…

the gang

Given the slightest opportunity to spy on citizens, the FBI will take it, lie about it and when finally caught, promise to do better next time.

I get the impression that the FBI makes employees denounce ethics and similar rogue ideologies.

Now that's integrity: Bloke sinks 7 beers, turns himself in. Cops weren't looking for him

Re: American beer is like sex in a canoe

It's ironic, but another American beer, Olympia, advertises right on the label that "it's the water".

Re: 1, 7 or 17?

I'm not from Texas, so can't vouch for those kinda folk there, but you'd have a hard time finding somebody who could get drunk on 7 Budweisers where I live.

Now Uncle Sam would like a word with Brit teen TalkTalk hacker about a huge crypto-coin heist

story pic rocks

That header pic has got to be one of the best here.

https://regmedia.co.uk/2016/08/31/cryingnomoney.jpg?x=442&y=293&crop=1

D-Link must suffer indignity of security audits to settle with the Federal Trade Commission

Two years

"the vendor has been granted a two-year “safe harbor” period to get its house in order"

So it will take them two years to fix something they claim they're not guilty of. Interesting.

Microsoft promises to boil down its lengthy and confusing privacy controls… in 1,500-word announcement

Re: Microsoft said it would split data gathered into "required" and "optional."

"How do they know there's nothing there unless they slurp it and sell it to 3rd parties for "analysis"? Think it through mate."

I don't get the joke, sorry. However, I'm guessing that you're assuming I want source code for auditing. No. I just don't like closed source and think that is part of the problem here and it's time to move on from that business model. I personally couldn't care less if MS makes any money or not since they're not spending it on anything that would benefit me anyway. To me the joke is that there are still people insisting on supporting MS and going along with their shenanigans.

Re: Microsoft said it would split data gathered into "required" and "optional."

Required data is what flows my way, and optional data is what goes to Microsoft. Source code is required on the user side, and any data going the other direction is optional.

America's anti-hacking laws are so loose, even Donald Trump Jr broke them. So, what do we do about it?

Whatever works.

Spyware sneaks into 'million-ish' Asus PCs via poisoned software updates, says Kaspersky

Modern times

"If you patch, there's a small chance you'll fall prey to a malicious update injected through the vendor. But if you don't patch, there's a close to 100% chance you'll be attacked over time."

Wise words, but only for certain values of "over time", and operating system. I have a machine running here which has been connected to the internet 24/7 for about 10 years, and running an operating system that hasn't had any updates for (what in 2 months will be) 25 years. I'll leave it to the reader to guess the OS, but ... just sayin'.

Not quite the Bake Off they were expecting: Canadian seniors served weed-infused brownies

Re: As a Canadian

"If de-regulation has been accompanied by no discernable downside, . . . "

The thing is that it has been de-criminalized, not de-regulated. We now have an awful lot of regulations which we didn't have before. This is making it hard for smaller concerns who now are in a different kind of jeopardy than before. Many regular users are not happy with the change.

What's holding up the 5G utopia in Britain? Quite a lot, actually

Re: Not an expense

We have no G either. That's only for flatlanders.

(Mounts of SW BC)

Re: Why is this being presented as a race?

I think the US politicians see it as a race because they want to be the centre of that market and have their manufacturers be the main beneficiaries. I suspect China has a similar interest.

What do sexy selfies, search warrants, tax files have in common? They've all been found on resold USB sticks

Seconhand USB sticks?

Niche market, I guess. I've never seen anything like that for sale. They're cheap enough new.

Now if we were talking 1989, then I would have been getting discarded boxes of 5.25" floppies, checking for useful software and reformatting them. Actually that was lots of fun to look at funny resumes and letters to girl friends. Sadly there used to be a considerable number of financial and medical records as well.

Amazon may finally get its hands on .amazon after world's DNS overseer loses patience

"ICANN finally lost its patience"

I had to read that twice.

Biker sues Google Fiber: I broke my leg, borked my ankle in trench dug to lay ad giant's pipe

5mph!

What was he thinking?

While this CEO may be stiff, his customers are rather stuffed: Quadriga wallets finally cracked open – nothing inside

They looked shady a long time ago

I was interested in Quadringa a couple of years ago and registered an account on-line with them. I noted they originally had an "office" in a decent part of town, but that they had moved to another area. Since I was going to be in Vancouver, I thought that I'd just drop by their office to validate my account before I did any actual transactions with them. It turns out their address led to a small postal box outlet and there was no office at all. At that point my confidence in them dropped like a stone.

5G is 'ready' once you redefine 'ready'... and then redefine 'reality'

fair weather tech

I have a feeling this won't work well on days when it's snowing heavily. Perhaps not even very well in heavy rain. If that's true (correct me if I'm wrong) then this is not going to work in many parts of Canada.

How to make people sit up and use 2-factor auth: Show 'em a vid reusing a toothbrush to scrub a toilet – then compare it to password reuse

Re: Wanting to use 2FA is one thing...

"Why should it need connectivity, ... "

Sure, but for those of us in areas where there is no cell connectivity (most of rural Canada), we often don't have, let alone carry, a cell phone.

Also, pardon my ignorance, but how would I connect a cell phone to my computers? Do I need to install some kind of USB wireless device? I am indeed interested in 2FA, but it seems that there are different explanations of how to do it, each with a different set of unexpressed assumptions.

Re: Wanting to use 2FA is one thing...

Not only that, but it appears that any USB device is potentially hackable because of issues with USB itself. From what I can read, that leaves cell phones for 2FA, which don't have connectivity in some buildings and areas. I'm not entirely convinced that a longer video will solve those problems.

Good news: Congress has solutions to end net neutrality brouhaha. Bad news: Two competing sets of solutions...

Re: The internet has multiple layers

"... but then our Congress has few tech types who know the difference."

I don't think the issue requires "technical types". It's pretty simple to understand that a road (the internet) is not a store (information service). I think the actual problem is that non technical types tend to think it all very technical.

Up up and Huawei in my beautiful buffoon: Trump sparks panic by tying tech kit ban, charges to China trade negotiations

Re: "Criminal charges" ?

Yeah, those were the good old days.

IBM so very, very sorry after jobs page casually asks hopefuls: Are you white, black... or yellow?

sorry or not

Somebody obviously works there who thinks in these terms. Perhaps still does.

Who will stand up for European democracy? Us! says US software giant Microsoft

question

Are these attacks also hitting people who don't subscribe to Office 365?

Europe-style 5G standards testing? Consistent definitions? Who the fsck wants that, asks US mobe industry

Stalling?

I realise that the US want's to protect their own ability to add back-doors to equipment and sell US made products. But, could it also be that they have an interest in stalling the adoption of 5G because their infrastructure doesn't have enough capacity for a 5G future? I mean, they're already making money to the max, so why would they want to spend more money on new technology?

Huawei hasn't yet fixed its security vulns, says UK's NCSC overseers

Old hat

". . . new Chinese laws that allow the Communist state to compel its citizens to co-operate with its spies."

And how exactly is this different from the USA National Security Letters? (Other than that the US version is almost 20 years old now.)

What's in a name? Quite a bit when it's the most hated abbreviation of 2018 (GDPR, of course)

Google language

Once upon a time there was a difference between upper case and lower case, and even a space had significance. I guess those days are gone.

Just do IoT? We'd walk a mile in someone else's Nike smart sneakers, but they seem to be 'bricked'

Re: Bricked?

I can see Nike stopping people in their tracks with a single command from command central. Just wait until NSA/cops get into this one. Also, "stop thief!" will be deprecated and replaced with an app.

Unearthed emails could be smoking gun in epic GDPR battle: Google, adtech giants 'know they break Euro privacy law'

Re: Death to advertisers!

If that question mark is because you're asking. I'd say no, it's not sarcasm.

What did turbonerds do before the internet? 41 years ago, a load of BBS

"I remember"

I can't recall when I've seen so many posts beginning with "I remember"

Nice. :)

Oh Snapd! Gimme-root-now security bug lets miscreants sock it to your Ubuntu boxes

Re: Who the hell uses Linux

"Linux keeps on showing it is very inept to run desktop software - showing that being low-cost but with almost no useful software doesn't bring you far."

I'm not surprised you post as AC. I have no comment on MS Windows, but would like to point out that millions of amateurs (and professionals) have absolutely no problem installing and using Linux as a desktop. Perhaps you should ask one of them for help.

Bloke thrown in the cooler for eight years after 3D-printing gun to dodge weapon ban

Undeterred

This guy obviously wasn't going to let some silly court order stop him in his quest for jail time.

Why does that website take forever to load? Clues: Three syllables, starts with a J, rhymes with crock of sh...

regmedia.co.uk

This is where The Register goes wrong in their web design. I just spent 8 seconds waiting for that. This happens frequently.

I encourage The Register to fix that problem.

Uncle Sam to its friends around the world: You can buy technology the easy way, or the Huawei

very odd

Interesting how the US really doesn't believe in the idea of sovereignty.

Not heard owt bad about Huawei, says EU Commish infosec bod

Re: may find themselves in a disadvantage in dealing with us

Yes, that's not a particularly veiled threat. Sounds kind of thuggish, actually.

I studied hard, I trained for years. Yay, now I'm an astronaut in space. Argggh, leukemia!

How does this compare?

It would be interesting to compare this to some of the jobs here on earth. I wouldn't be surprised if some are worse off.

Apple: You can't sue us for slowing down your iPhones because you, er, invited us into, uh, your home... we can explain

More like vampires?

That's funny, but frankly I just consider it more like a home invasion.

Build the wall... around your DNS settings, US govt IT staff urged by Homeland Security amid domain hijackings

Re: Brave New World

Never say never. Google Public DNS Server Traffic Hijacked Just sayin'.

Fake news? More like ache news. Grandma, grampa 'more likely' to share made-up articles during US election

Where did they get these people?

One would think that the longer you live the wiser you get to being conned, though I'm guessing that different generations have different vulnerabilities too. It's been some years since I passed 65 but despite coming from an arts background, that doesn't mean that I'm not still learning things that are relevant to my life in 2019, including networking and computer security. Anybody can learn about the internet if they want to. Could it be that this particular sample is just not interested in things? Certainly the spreading of lies for political and ideological purposes in the press, and elsewhere, was prevalent 50 years ago - the same as it's always been.

Attention all British .eu owners: Buy dotcom domains and prepare to sue, says UK govt

Re: Civil servants are confused

Since it's the UK that's doing the walking, I don't know why they're not suggesting .shoes as a replacement.

Mark Zuckerberg did everything in his power to avoid Facebook becoming the next MySpace – but forgot one crucial detail…

No one likes a lying asshole

I'm not convinced that's universally true. Those traits seem to be quite popular in some circles.

Silent night, social fight: Is Instagram the new Facebook for pro-Trump Russian propagandists?

Re: freedom and choice

I agree that most people don't have a clue, but I'm not convinced that I'm the one to judge or make their choices for them. I live in a country that has been flooded by US propaganda for decades and they spend lots of money on influencing our elections as well. This is not going to go away any quicker than advertising will. Democracy is still the best choice to my mind, and that means the only hope is that over time people will be able to take better responsibility for their own understanding of the situation. In the meanwhile, I don't think that censorship is a solution.

freedom and choice

I thought that in a democracy people were free to make up their own minds. If they're going to be influenced by propaganda then that's their choice to make.

Comparison sites cry foul over Google Shopping service

dissenting opinion

"Not only do Google's users inevitably end up paying higher prices for products than they need to, they are often left completely unaware that comparison shopping services even exist,"

By itself, comparing prices is useless. I do a lot of online shopping and it's mostly from companies that I know to be reliable, and particularly ones that I know will actually send me the goods in a timely manner without hassle and (sometimes considerable) extra cost. Frankly, I think comparison sites just waste my time.

French president Macron insists new regulations needed to protect us all from Facebook's claws

Re: "made it a little surprising"

Right on @Shadow Systems. It is from the outside that change must come. And the outside is us.

OK Google, why was your web traffic hijacked and routed through China, Russia today?

where are the logs?

I notice the article doesn't mention who did it. That suggests to me that there is no effective access control to these routers. Perhaps a partial solution would involve verifying and logging access.

Dollar for dollar, crafting cryptocurrency sucks up 'more energy' than mining gold, copper, etc

Re: as much, if not more, energy to mine

I live in an area where hand mining is still popular. Gold has been mined here for over 100 years and there are a few larger operations as well. So, I get to see how this business works, and it is clear that what they used to say in the old days when there was a much higher yield, is still true today: "for every dollar you take out of the ground, you put 10 dollars in." The fact of the matter is that most of the money involved is from investors who don't actually participate actively, and the money is all on the stock market. Most mines fail, and get reopened with new investors later until all the infrastructure is eventually paid for. I suggest that the numbers assumed in this article are likely out by a factor of ten to one.

It is fashionable to bash cryptocurrency for its energy use, and it does seem to be wasteful, but in reality it may well be that physical gold mining eats up more resources when you include the total financial costs.